


Down in the ground where the dead men go

by dimtraces



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ageing, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ghost Castiel, Ghost Sex, M/M, actual piece of literature being used as a vehicle for sad gay semi-corporeal ghost sex, metaphorical depression, progressive memory loss, with vaguely happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 23:27:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5517089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back when in it all happened, Dean used to torture himself with trying to find out as much about Cas’ last year as possible, to figure out why he died. That’s where he found out that Castiel kept mentioning the man who lured him to Falun all the way from Gothenburg, a man no-one knows because, and Dean had to do a lot of digging, Fergus Crowley was one of the unlucky sods who died in a mine accident, more than a hundred years ago now. Crowley, who apparently returned as a malicious ghost, out to lead as many into his own deathtrap as he could.</p><p>Cas died the same way.</p><p>Is it too much to hope that he’d come back the same way too?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down in the ground where the dead men go

On the way down from Falu mine, that’s where Dean sees him. Head bowed, rubbing his aching muscles as if he were just any other man in this cursed mining town. Before he can process it, he’s gone without a trace.

 .:.

Blue eyes peer at him in concern when he empties half the tavern. Dean whips his head up as fast as he can, but he gets nothing except the scowl of the barmaid and the urge to vomit. Which he does, copiously, as soon as he stumbles outside.

He really shouldn’t have had that twelfth pint of beer.

 .:.

He could have sworn he didn’t pull his shoes off when he dropped down on his floor to sleep it off. But here he is, shoeless and covered with a blue blanket.

 .:.

Someone leaves a dried cornflower on his pillow.

 .:.

Dean keeps seeing him. The tavern, the street; the street, the tavern. (Dean doesn’t go out much anymore.) He peered over Charlie’s shoulder when she came by to see whether Dean had drunk himself to death yet, concerned and so so disapproving that Dean wanted to shout at him, You don’t get to say anything to me, you killed yourself first!

Maybe they’re whiskey-induced, these hallucinations. He certainly wasn’t sober when he had most of them, but then again, when is he? Maybe he’s finally snapped in his old age, or maybe the shock of finding Castiel’s preserved dead body after fifty years of telling himself that he probably was just tired of Dean and had left without a word—maybe the shock of losing his last hope finally pushed him round the bend.

But now, Dean feels…

Back when in it all happened, he used to torture himself with trying to find out as much about Cas’ last year as possible, to figure out why he died. If there’s something he could have done to save him. That’s where he found out just how little his dad had cared for his workers. The true conditions under which Cas and the other men labored, day-in, day-out. And that Castiel kept mentioning the man who lured him to Falun all the way from Gothenburg, a man no-one knows because, and Dean had to do a lot of digging, Fergus Crowley was one of the unlucky sods who died in a mine accident, more than a hundred years ago now.

Crowley, who apparently returned as a malicious ghost, out to lead as many into his own deathtrap as he could.

Cas died the same way.

Is it too much to hope that he’d come back the same way too?

 

 

 

###  **... then:**

The surface opening is surprisingly unspectacular, seen from afar. A cluster of square openings in the reddish brown of the rocks, mine shafts both ancient and new, a testament to the haphazard planning of the mining companies. The deep red tower above, and the headframes above the mine shafts. Below, rubble and slag cover the hill, the by-products of progress. Nothing’s growing on the penurious mountainside. He’s read about the land here before, and the writer was right: There really isn’t a single blade of grass anywhere on the verge, and Castiel can’t see any birds flying by. Insects, neither. The landscape is stripped bare of trees: Millions of whole logs have been dragged inside to support the stone.

Every day, men enter the earth here, and brave the ever-present sulfurous fumes to find copper and gold and silver and everything else the world needs.

After days of stumbling past trees and rocks, slipping on thawing ice and looking past the snowdrops, eyes trained on the dark-haired man who was always barely out of reach until he finally vanished into the mine, Castiel has at last made it to Falun.

Yes, it shall be the right decision. His fellow sailors had expressed their concern—Castiel, that’s a radical change of career, are you sure this isn’t just the grief, they’d queried. Don’t dawdle, you idiot! Come drink with us. Dance with us, and it will pass—but there is nothing left for him on any of the East Indiamen. Not the riches he found afar, and the exhilaration of the salt-tanged breeze, and the camaraderie, and the women only too happy to spend a night with a returning sailor, even if Castiel always disappoints them because he prefers to talk. There is not a single person in his life in whose company he can be merry any more. And not a single person who can be merry in his, after his betrayal.

The mirror-like waves of the Göthaelf, the currents that had looked so much like freedom when he’d left his family behind, when he’d first set sail to provide for his ailing mother, they had turned repugnant the second he’d returned, and found strangers in his childhood home. Strangers, who’d told him—pityingly, once they’d realized who they were faced with—that Mrs Fröbom had been buried three months ago. The ceremony was small, Castiel can only imagine. Who’d have come, with her only child at sea, selfishly choosing his comrades’ company over hers, so ignorant of his poor mother’s abject fate?

But then, at the tavern Balthazar had dragged him along to, even though Castiel had refused him again and again, guilt still seared into his mind, he’d met a man. A short, dark-haired man, who’d later explained that he was a miner hailing from the most splendid mine of all.

And he’d _understood_.

“Ah, Castiel,” the miner had said, unprompted. “Just not your day, is it?” He’d explained to Castiel that maybe, sailing just wasn’t for him. And spun a yarn of the resplendence of the underground that he belonged to, so vibrant and enthralling that before he knew it, Castiel had already promised to seek out Falun.

There are no ropes to tie Castiel anywhere, anymore. Adrift as he is, how can he throw himself at the wind’s mercy, and hope to return again?

So Castiel will turn his back on the ocean, and the air, and everything that has turned him astray.

And he will go into the ground.

.:.

Before he procures employment in the mines, though, he should find a bed. It won’t be hard—Falun’s almost a metropolis, comparable in size to many of the harbor cities he’s seen on his journeys, and as prosperous (if with much dirtier air). Being the world’s largest copper producer will do that to a town. That’s why it was sensible to come here, after all. Here, he’s just one man among many, and there is no-one who knows him and might bother him about his state of mind. Here, he can vanish into the masses. And it’s also simple practicality: Bustling mines need new workers, always.

There’s a crowd on the market square. Thirty or so dirty muscled men with pit lights in their hands, on their way to a hearty meal after another day’s work well done. Their leader is well-dressed and clean, with stubble and deep brown eyes, and Castiel asks the man next to him for his name.

He strikes gold.

Castiel mingles with the group of miners and follows John Winchester, majority stock owner of one of the most renowned mining companies, into the tavern.

He’s intent on getting his business over with now; he’d desperately like to start working tomorrow if at all possible. There’s the money. And Castiel’s suspicious of the way idleness seems to draw out the thoughts he has carefully sorted away in the drawers of his mind, like a child throwing a tantrum and collapsing his carefully constructed self in one fell swoop. Isn’t that why he came here in the first place?

As much as he needs this job, though: Inside, he’s struck by something else.

The serving boy who comes over to greet the miners, he’s—beautiful. He might be a few years younger than Castiel at most, a cynosure with green eyes drawn up in a dazzling smile as he presents John Winchester with ‘his usual’. Castiel has spent much of his professional downtime being dragged to bars, a rootless sailor among equals, and he’s familiar with this picture: The friendliness an invitation to augment a meagre wage. He won’t begrudge this server his attempt at a better life. He’s conversed with enough prostitutes back in Gothenburg’s port taverns to know there’s nothing shameful in surviving, and had gladly parted with whatever he’d carried back from his voyages for whoever asked him. (At the time, it hadn’t seemed like much, to have to take another trip to make up the value of his gifts. But that’s because it wasn’t _him_ paying for his indulgence. But enough of dwelling on the past.) He’s only saddened that this is indeed a universal plight, and that the green-eyed server hasn’t received a better lot in life. At Castiel’s surreptitious glances around, he notices that he isn’t the only one struck with envy.

But, like everyone else, he has nothing new to offer this man, and so he turns to the counter and orders his stew from someone else. It’s good, warming him from the inside out in a way he hadn’t noticed he needed, but Castiel can’t help thinking as he chews that it would have been improved with company. With anyone’s company. Castiel certainly doesn’t have a specific meal-sharer in mind. It’s only to dispel the loneliness, and to drown the recriminations in chatter.

Castiel focuses his eyes on the waiter again.

He hasn’t moved on from the mining magnate yet, in all the time it took Castiel to finish his meal, but the smile from his face is gone. He snarls something—the background hum is too loud for Castiel to make it out—but it displeases the choleric Winchester, who evidently doesn’t like to be back-talked in public, especially by someone he must consider beneath him, even he is more willing to be seen together than the people Castiel is used to. He grabs the serving boy’s arm, strongly enough to likely leave bruises, and pulls him close to yell something into his ear. The server’s face blanks and he shakes his arm as if to pull free, but Winchester isn’t done bullying him yet.

Castiel gets up to intervene, but before he can end the altercation and any probability of being hired here with it, Winchester shoves the waiter back and lets go. The young man leaves the tavern.

Castiel follows him out of the door.

“Leave me alone, dad,” is the first thing the beautiful serving boy says to Castiel, and it turns out he has badly misread the situation.

“What were you fighting about?” Castiel asks.

“None of your fucking business, newbie,” the server answers. “You’re new, right? Haven’t seen you around here before, and I wouldn’t forget a face like that.”

Grateful for the new opening, Castiel smiles. “No. I only arrived in Falun today.”

“Business?”

“I’m going to work in a mine.”

“I can hook you up, dude. No trouble. My Dad owns one of those things,” the server says, apparently happier now that he has something to offer.

“And yet you work in a bar?”

“I know, right? Dad doesn’t want me to go down into the pit. Too dangerous, he says. Which is bullshit. My friend Benny works for us, you know, goes down every day, no problem. But suddenly when it’s me it’s not good enough, and he’s all ‘No, Dean, that thing could collapse at any time. You stay up here, and that’s an order, Dean!’”

“I’m Castiel Fröbom.”

“Whuh—oh, yeah, right. I’m Dean. Winchester. Didn’t mean to just start ranting at you, dude.”

“It’s fine,” Castiel says. “I don’t mind. I’m intimately familiar with parental plans.”

“Yeah? Your family not into the mining thing either?” When Castiel doesn’t elaborate, he moves on unbidden. Castiel makes a mental note that in addition to being beautiful, Dean is good company. “Never mind. Where are you staying? Nowhere yet? Come on, I know a place…”

Yes, it was absolutely the right decision.

.:.

Dean’s kindness is an inexhaustible well. He delivers Castiel to a roadhouse whose owner he knows and negotiates a much more reasonable rate for a room. The room turns out to be very clean and spacious, if Spartan. There isn’t even a chair for Dean to sit on, so they both share the bed. Dean promises that he will speak to his father this evening about the work. And the very next morning, he comes by, accompanying Castiel to breakfast and then the mine, where he introduces him to a friend who will ‘show this nerd the ropes’.

There are no ropes, or if they are, they aren’t especially important for someone of Castiel’s lowly position. What is important is that Castiel watch the horse-drawn trolley carrying timber deep into the mine.

“Surprised at how hot it is?” Dean’s friend asks when Castiel pauses to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. “That’s ‘cos we’re digging here, need to soften up the stone before we can scrape it off. See how we followed the copper vein into the mountain, boy?”

Castiel finds out that the main adit is actually a twelve-hundred feet long and six-hundred feet wide network of galleries. That there is a shaft here that reaches nine-hundred feet straight down into the bowels of the earth. That copper has been mined in this mountain since the ninth century.

When Castiel falls into bed in the evening, he is exhausted, but satisfied.

The next day, Dean is back, thumping Castiel on the back and laughing at what he’s just said, green eyes gleaming as he relates tales of his customers at the bar. The conversation turns to Dean’s childhood, how his father once caught him trying to sneak into the mine, but then the tide changes and they’re back at plans for the evening.

“Do you have any?” Dean asks.

It’s a good evening, playing dice with Dean and his brother and his friends, and not once does Castiel have to think.

The next day, Dean’s there again.

And the next.

Castiel can do nothing but let himself be swept away by the inexorable tide of Dean’s affection. (Sometimes, he wonders why Dean should want to spend so much time with Castiel, a virtual stranger, when he has so many other friends. But when he asks, Dean’s eyes turn guilty. Maybe Dean’s just as lonely as Castiel.)

.:.

One time down there, Castiel’s sure he catches his smiling face in the fire, the face of the man who sent him to Falun. The man laughs, and then the flames flare up into dazzling light and reach out and grab Castiel to drag him into the rock.

When his foreman asks what startled Castiel into dropping his chisel, he doesn’t know what to say.

.:.

Castiel has been observing Dean’s face. His freckles have grown more numerous as the days have grown longer, a new galaxy growing more visible in inverse proportion to the real stars, who have been swallowed by the sunrise most days now when Castiel gets up. His eyes are still the only green thing even though spring has come and gone, an island of life in the barren landscape. Dean’s mouth, though: surrounded by red as Castiel is, day-in, day-out, he still hasn’t found anything to match the exact shade, and he has tried. The closest he’s come are the almandines down in the mine, he thinks, but they’re sequestered in the collapse-prone side galleries they’re not excavating in and so he’s never come close enough to check. At night, he dreams of them, and of Dean with his gemstone mouth and his gentle star hands.

Sometimes, he doesn’t look away fast enough, and Dean’s eyes catch him, and they’re so _bright_.

(In his mind, it’s alright to get caught.)

.:.

“Stop wriggling, dude, I want to read,” Dean says, but Castiel can’t. There simply isn’t a comfortable way to lie on the bed. It feels like someone sneaked in and replaced his mattress with gravel. For Dean’s sake, he tries to hold still, but even that isn’t enough.

Dean throws his book aside and says, “The tension in your shoulders is giving me a fucking headache. Lie down.”

“I’m already down, you know. You were complaining about my inadequate lying down not three seconds ago,” Castiel grunts.

“Smart-ass. Not on your back, Cas. Strip off. I’m going to give you a massage.”

“I don’t see how that is conductive to your consumption of—”

“Don’t care about the book, man. You look exhausted. What are they doing with you down there?”

It’s true, the work’s hard, and Castiel has taken to staying longer than most. He winces as he contorts his aching shoulders to pull the shirt off.

“Good,” Dean says as he offers Castiel his own pillow, face strangely pink. “Find a comfortable position”—Dean should know that his order is impossible. Hasn’t he just chastised Castiel for failing to find comfort? But Dean often says strange things, and Castiel allows him his slip-ups because he knows what it’s like to be policed for every single word that leaves his mouth— “… and let me know if this hurts.”

It does. But if Castiel vocalizes it, then Dean might take his hands away, and that is simply unacceptable. Castiel bites his lips to swallow the groan down.

“Seriously, what’s going on? Your back’s knotted to hell.”

“’s just work.”

“Just work, my ass. You’re down there, what, two hours before anyone else gets in?”

Dean takes his hands away and Castiel wants to protest, but then the bed creaks and Dean settles above him, straddling his hips, and resumes his work.

Castiel is so lucky he’s prone on the bed. He hopes Dean will not want him to sit up while he’s still there, or Castiel may die of shame. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to remember that he has been asked a question. “Someone has to set up and check the wall for cracks.”

“But not you, every day, Cas. You’re working yourself into the ground.”

“It’s safer. I—ooh, yes, Dean—I know what I’m looking for, I can’t rely on someone else knowing the danger signs. You said it yourself, there’ve been too many cave-ins in your father’s mine. You said you don’t want more people to die. Well, I don’t want that either.”

“So you check every single gallery before you go to work? Cas, you’re not responsible for everybody’s well-being.”

“I am, Dean. Ouch!” He can’t glare at Dean in this position, so he settles for fuming at the wall at the betrayal of being smacked on the head.

“You’re not. If anything, the deaths are my fault, or Dad’s. We own this thing. You’re just a grunt.”

“I’m not a grunt.” Castiel fumes. “The work I do is valuable. Since I have arrived, my crew has almost doubled our excavation rate.”

“Jesus, sorry. You know I didn’t mean it that way. I only meant that it isn’t your responsibility if people live or die. I know you’re a good man—”

“I’m not.”

“What?” Dean’s hands leave Castiel’s lower back. He wants to beg for them to come back, but this is more important.

“I’m not… good. I never told you how I came to be here. My mother died, and…” He trails off.

Dean’s voice rings so, so loud in the sudden stillness. “Did you… do anything?”

“No, I—I wasn’t there,” Castiel replies.

Dean exhales.

It’s the only story left he can still give. All the others, of adventures and comrades that Dean was so eager to hear, months ago now, they’ve all paled, but this, the one event Castiel wanted to leave behind. This, not even the mine wanted to take from him. “I was at sea. I knew my mother was going to die soon, and I was so desperate to get away from her I threw myself at the next ship leaving the harbor! I just left!” He tries to buck off Dean’s hand where it’s stroking his shoulder, offering comfort that is both unwanted and undeserved. “When I returned to Gothenburg, she was dead. And I’d left her. If I hadn’t met the miner Crowley at a bar, I don’t know what I’d have done. Jumped, maybe. He told me to come here.”

Dean’s gone still. “Crowley?” he whispers.

“You know him?”

“No, never met him. A guy two years ago mentioned that name, came all the way from Kiruna to work here. Sweet little guy.”

“Do you remember his name? I’d like to talk to him.” It might do some good, to ask someone else who may have experienced the compulsion to go down there, the way his eyes orient themselves towards the earths maw if he’s distracted.

“You’re a year too late for that, dude. He’s dead.”

.:.

It’s a good day. They’ve sent as much crude ore up today as they’d managed the whole week before that. And what’s more, they’ve chiseled away all the fire-weakened stone in their gallery today. Tomorrow will begin with stacking timber and burning it, and while many in his crew have expressed their distaste for the heat, Castiel’s grown to find it comforting. There’s only one place he’d rather be than at the forefront, watching the embers welcome them into the stone.

But when he arrives at Dean’s tavern, his friend isn’t outside to welcome him. In fact, it takes Castiel quite some time to make him out in the throng of people: He’s back at the secluded table in the back that’s got the best table-cloth and the finest silverware, and that Dean says they use for the most honored guests or for celebrations. He isn’t there alone. John Winchester sits next to him, and on his other side is a pretty dark-haired woman. Lisa Braeden, Castiel remembers. Dean is friendly with the young widowed seamstress and her son, and he’s tried to cajole Castiel many times into joining them when they go out into the fields to play ball. Castiel has always been at work, or too tired. Sometimes, Dean attacks him for it, saying that Castiel had agreed to meet up when Castiel doesn’t have any memories of doing so.

Dean’s face doesn’t light up the way it usually does as Castiel comes closer. In fact, Castiel can’t read his facial expression at all, and Dean doesn’t look his way. He’s looking at his father instead.

John Winchester raises his glass to a toast. “Good news,” he says. “Been telling my boy to look for a wife for years. If only I’d known that he had his heart set on someone from the start!”

For one startling second, Castiel thinks he means _him_. He certainly hasn’t been unaware that he and Dean have been uncommonly close, have done things that would have made Balthazar dub them ‘lovebirds’ and tease him until Castiel blushed. But no, if Dean’s father knew, he wouldn’t be this _happy_. If it’s not Castiel, who has Dean—

“The wedding between my son and Miss Braeden is set three months from now. I know, a man of my son’s standing could have any woman and didn’t have to settle for one with a child already, but he’ll raise the son as his. Dean has always been a bit of a do-gooder, but I—”

Castiel turns around and stumbles out of the tavern. If Dean tries to say anything to stop him, he doesn’t hear it, but then, Dean wouldn’t try to stop him, would he? Dean doesn’t feel anything for him. He never told him about his plans with Lisa, even though he must have known that Castiel—or not? Maybe Dean has grown tired of his progressing fatigue. Maybe for Dean it was just another distraction, the way it should have been for Castiel. After all, he came here to atone for the way he treated his mother. No matter how she raised him, he shouldn’t have left her, shouldn’t have taken any opportunity he could to prolong his absence. Maybe Dean sensed the shoddy way he treated his family, and decided that Castiel wasn’t to be trusted with information about Dean’s new family either. In fact, isn’t it better that Dean doesn’t feel anything for Castiel? This way, Castiel won’t disappoint him, the way he’s failed everybody else. He’s deluded himself, thinking that he could have both: the surface and the warmth of the deep.

Castiel looks up and realizes that his legs have carried him to the mine.

He’s never been here at night before. Now, he doesn’t know why he resisted for so long—the gaping fissures of the mountain look even more imposing at night, the smoke and the sulfur fumes pouring out of the earths cavernous maws into the valley below. Yes, Dean decided well. Castiel should be here now, and unearth more riches for Dean’s family to be kept clothed and fed and warm. Castiel grabs a trolley and his gear and sets out for the bowels of the earth. There’s no use going to his crew’s gallery now, he needs more men to excavate the ore there. But Castiel’s noticed things, abandoned paths that drew his eyes with the deep red glimmer of the stones trapped there. During daytime, his shift had warned him away from following them.

This time of night, there’s nobody there.

So Castiel follows the call, past the galleries closed off with fallen rocks and decorated with chalk crosses that litter the intestines of the world down here towards the almandines. He doesn’t have to double back once, he _knows_ where he is going.

Just follow the light.

There are iron-wrought long-limbed trees here bearing fiery dripping fruit, and a deep blue lake, and the ground is as soft as skin. His feet don’t hurt anymore. Castiel thinks he can hear someone singing. Somewhere inside his mind, he knows he voice, and then he remembers. Dean. When he tries to reach the source of the sounds and tell Dean off because he isn’t supposed to be here, it suddenly seems as if the song is coming from behind him.

Someone touches his hand.

He looks up at Dean, who’s leading a pale horse. His eyes smother Castiel’s with light much clearer than the sun—

And he gets slapped in the face.

“What are you doing down here, idjit boy. Staring at the rocks,” says foreman Singer. “Dean’s sent me to look for you. He’s been worried sick.”

Castiel wants to explain about the earthen paradise, but there are no words left in him, and anyway, the trees have all been turned to cinder.

Singer keeps grumbling while he hauls Castiel out of the mine, but Castiel is more interested in putting one foot before the other. As soon as Castiel stumbles out into the daylight, Bobby renders him to the enemy.

“Where the fuck have you been?!” Dean shouts at him.

Castiel smiles. Dean would like the clear blue lake. Or Dean knows the lake? Was he there? He’s told Castiel about how he should really teach Ben to swim soon. Castiel looks around for Dean’s wife-to-be to congratulate her, but she isn’t there. Silly. Of course she wouldn’t be up here at the mine, she has work. Castiel has work, too. He should look for his crew, they have to soften the next stretch of rock and he is good with the fire, much better than everyone else. Everyone says so. Castiel’s arms feel very heavy. Dean’s eyes are very green. His mouth is red. The almandines were red. He went down to get them. Castiel looks around for his cart, but it’s empty. He forgot the stones. He should really go back—

He’s being shaken. Oh, Dean’s still there. Only, there isn’t there anymore. There is now Castiel’s room.

“You listen to a single word I said?” Dean asks him gruffly.

Castiel nods. Yes, he’s feeling much better already. There’s no reason for Dean to worry, or to take time out of his day to spent watching over Castiel instead of with his family. Castiel tells him this.

Dean frowns. “Dude. You’re my family too, don’t you see that?”

He’ll want a reply. Castiel goes to look for words inside himself. “You’re sweet.”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it would set you off like that. You’re scaring me, dude. And I—look. I don’t think you get it, Cas. I love my dad, I do, but he jumps to conclusions. And he’s been bugging me for a while to become a respectable man and marry, and when I mentioned Lisa… I mean, I like Lisa, she’s great, but we’ve talked about it and she understands, and, you know, she’s not—”

Castiel gently presses his index finger to Dean’s lip and cuts him off. He understands. Dean feels bad, and the extreme reaction Castiel displayed obviously made him worry. But even if it looked like a ploy for attention, that wasn’t what he _meant_. He just wanted to go away for a while to sort his mind out, and he accomplished that. But now he sees that no matter whether he meant to manipulate Dean with his actions, that is what happened. Dean’s ready to call off an _engagement_ to spare Castiel’s feelings.

“I’m sorry for worrying you, Dean,” Castiel replies, and Dean draws up like the mountain on his shoulders has crumbled. “I was just working late. I’ll pay more attention to the time in the future.”

And he will. Castiel is in control of what he’s doing, and everything’s fine. It’s unacceptable for Castiel to manipulate Dean’s feelings like this. He deserves better.

.:.

Castiel goes back to work.

At first, Dean insists on meeting him every evening when he comes out of the mine and walking him back, so Castiel can do ‘no funny business’, but gradually, he relaxes. He has no reason to worry: Castiel doesn’t see paradise again, and anyway, he’s never told him about it or the Dean made of light in the first place. There was no reason to unduly worry him. Castiel is fine. (Maybe Castiel will get to keep the Dean down there, once the Dean up here moves on from him. Dean insists that it was a misunderstanding and that he isn’t marrying Lisa, but once he enters the mine, Castiel realized he knows better.)

If he doesn’t contain the words necessary to describe what he’s seen, if he feels like he’s slowly losing control of the language to the point where it’s becoming a chore to contribute to Dean’s complaining about customers and his dad’s plans and the food and the weather, well, Dean was always the more talkative of them anyway. If he starts pushing his food around on his plate, it’s probably because it’s never been that tasty in the first place. If Castiel feels tired when he goes to bed and tired when he wakes up, it’s just that he’s working hard. One shared dinner missed becomes two, or three, and that suits Castiel just fine. They’re both busy people, after all.

Castiel doesn’t get a chance to seek out the almandines again. There’s always someone next to him in the mine, herding him on. (He thinks Dean’s paying them.)

When Castiel thinks to ask around about the miner who sent him to Falun ten months ago, no-one remembers his name.

.:.

“Cas. This has to stop,” Dean says when Castiel has dragged himself into his dirty tiny room, trailing red earth behind him like a mauled deer. It has long ceased to be a surprise to find Dean waiting in here. With flowers now, apparently, dried cornflowers, that he fidgets around with. Castiel thinks they may be meant as a present, though he is unsure as to the recipient and the occasion. Maybe today is a special day. It's not completely impossible.

“I’m gonna tie you to the bed if you even think about going to work tomorrow. It’s fucking Christmas eve tomorrow. You’re entitled to a holiday.”

“Dean, I have to _work_.”

“No, you don’t. You just think you do. But don’t you see? It’s easy. Just don’t go down there for one fucking day. Surely you can manage that? Just leave if for one day and go out with me and have fun.”

“Please. I just want to sleep,” says Castiel.

“That’s what I’m talking about. You never want to do anything anymore. You never even come by the tavern. I thought you wanted—I thought we were friends.”

“We are, Dean.” Somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, it starts to register. This is what he wanted—what he _wants_. A Dean of the above who cares about him, who wants him to stay. But… “What about Lisa?”

“What about her? Christ, dude, I thought we talked about this two months ago.” Did they? “I’m not marrying her. Lisa’s a friend, a good friend, but I… Guess we’re talking about this then?”

“This?” Castiel suppresses his yawn. He just wants his bed to swallow him up, but Dean is here. This is more important.

“Don’t play dumb. I know you feel it too, this…” He waves his hand in an inexplicable shape. “This thing between us. You’re… too, right? Or you wouldn’t have been so jealous. Which, for the record, you have no reason to be.”

Castiel’s heart starts beating.

“I’m, you know. Shit, this is hard to talk about. Think you could weigh in and not leave me to stammer here like a moron?”

“Yes… But what is your father going to say?”

“Dad’s not gonna find out, okay.”

“It’s not going to stay a secret. Everyone knows you here.”

“Then we’ll leave. Just you and me, Cas. And Sam, maybe, he’s bored to death here anyway. But we’ll just go. Should, anyway, because the mine’s not doing you any favors. You look like something just puked you out.”

“You hardly look any better,” Castiel replies, spiteful. It’s not true. Dean looks radiant, as always. But for some reason, he’s attacking him, and Castiel is allowed to fight back.

“Ookay, dude. Whatever you say. You should probably go to sleep, you look wiped and you’re yawning non-stop.”

(Castiel does not mention that he would have already been asleep if Dean hadn’t kept him up.)

“Just, please, stay with me tomorrow.”

.:.

Castiel always wakes up at seven sharp. He thinks he remembers that he hasn’t always been the kind of person to wake up at this time. He thinks he can remember hammocks, and a red-haired woman trying to pull his blanket away as he fought to keep his eyes closed in spite of the noon sun, but then, the thought fades away. It might have been a dream. He is always so hazy and tired this time in the morning.

He uprights himself and starts pulling his clothes on. No time to dawdle.

Something slithers out of the dark to grab his leg. On further inspection, it turns out to be Dean, who’s apparently spent the night on Castiel’s floor in order to drag him down now, blearily glaring at Castiel and wincing when he rubs his neck. His eyes are red, too. He must not have slept well.

Castiel wonders why he isn’t more ecstatic that Dean’s here.

“We talked about this, Cas,” Dean says.

“We talked about you spending the night?” Castiel asks. It may well have happened. He must have been especially disoriented last night. Normally, his memories of the evenings and mornings only gradually fade within the week. The days, though, the days stay with him forever.

“We talked about you not going into that fucking mine again,” Dean replies.

“And I acquiesced?” Castiel is puzzled. He does not think he’d want to give up the splendor down there.

“Well, I told you not to or I’d chain you to your bed, so. Same difference.” Dean’s eyes change color. “Do you really not remember?” He sounds… Castiel knows that word. He’s scared. Dean shouldn’t be scared. Castiel must reassure him.

“It’s just once more,” he says. Yes. That is a good plan. Castiel doesn’t need to go down there, not really. He can stop. Dean wants him to stop. Just once more…

Dean’s face doesn’t do what Castiel wanted it to do. It stays the same. Hard.

“Just to say goodbye.”

“You’re lying,” Dean accuses. “And your lying face is not especially good, by the way. I can see you want to go back there, and that’s why you can’t, you understand? Don’t you see you’re obsessed with that thing? It ain’t healthy!”

“Dean, trust me. I just need to go once more. There is this one stone there… I could sell it. We’d be rich.” It’s coming back now. Dean touching Castiel, tenderly. Dean saying he wants to leave this town with Castiel. Dean begging him to stop. “Trust me, just let me go this once. I know what I’m doing.”

“Trust you? I don’t even _know you_ anymore. Do you even want to be here right now? With me? Or would you rather be down that fucking mine?”

Castiel doesn’t understand why Dean insists on attacking him, even now. Doesn’t he understand what’s down there in the ground? What he’s making Castiel give up? But there is no reasoning with him now, apparently. Maybe they should both wait until they’ve calmed down before they talk more. Yes, good. Castiel knows where he can go to calm down.

“You’re leaving?!” Dean sounds betrayed.

“It’s just for a little while, Dean. You’re not thinking straight. I’m giving you time to calm down.”

“You—what?! But—you—” Dean’s spluttering. He really needs some time to order his thoughts.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Wait.” Dean stops him before he leaves the room and calls him back. He puts something in the buttonhole of Castiel’s coat. It’s one of the flowers he’s brought Castiel yesterday, a shining blue cornflower. It’s very wilted. “Promise?” Dean asks.

“I promise, Dean” Castiel replies, and walks out of the door.

 

 

 

###  **... two days ago:**

The sky is clear and the world is white on a brilliant December day, and Charlie so excited for what’s going to happen now that even the endless hours of sitting through the church service haven’t managed to break her spirit. She’s more dancing than walking on her way to the great pinge where Falu mine’s main adit used to be.

Dorothy actually said yes to ‘exploring’ the crater, and there’s no way she missed the subtext—Charlie wriggled her eyebrows suggestively when she said explore, so the innuendo is unmissable, practically! Also, Charlie made sure to use her best moves, winking and giggling and asking Dorothy whether she works out—she does, and it shows: Dorothy has some serious guns—and Dorothy flirted back, gruff and so serious it made Charlie’s knees melt.

Just a few more miles up the copper mountain—they’re meeting at the large red tower, which is probably more romantic than Stora Stöten proper for a first date? But then again, Dorothy isn’t the kind of girl who minds getting dirty, whether it’s getting covered in grease at her job at the smithy, or, Charlie hopes, rolling around in a fifty-year-old man-made snowy sinkhole while being kissed within an inch of her life by a roguish redhead.

And when they’re both wet and chilly, Charlie’s gonna invite Dorothy home for a nice cup of hot chocolate and fancy home-made dinner and some ‘warming up’—see, she’s planned this perfectly.

Christmas is actually ideal for a date: Neither of them will have anything else to do today, and everyone else will be too preoccupied to disturb the fragile bloom of this romance for the ages. When Charlie came round the smithy two weeks ago to buy some nails _slash_ flirt, Dorothy had mentioned that she came up here for work all by herself, and that she hadn’t made enough to blow on a train ticket back home. Clearly fishing for Charlie to offer her some alternate plans. And so Charlie delivered. She doesn’t have any family anymore anyway, and she always begs off all pity offers to spend Christmas at her friends’ houses. Getting lucky with Dorothy is a much better way to spend the day than tending to her mother’s grave, and Mom has always wanted Charlie to live her life to the fullest. She’ll forgive this one lapse.

The mine isn’t as deserted for the holiday as Charlie’d hoped, though.

A group of miners are gathered around something laid down on a cart.

Ever curious, Charlie steals closer.

“—looks so alive, how long was he down here?” A miner asks.

“No idea,” another answers, “You know anyone who’s missing? We found him when we were connecting mine shafts. Completely submerged, he was, this blue liquid?”

“Copper vitriol,” a third says, and Charlie’s finally fought her way through the crowd.

There’s a young man lying on the cart, and it’s only because Charlie overheard the miners that she knows he isn’t being idle. He looks fast asleep, ruffled brown bed-head, long eyelashes casting shadows on delicate cheekbones. Not a trace of decay on his face or his neat suit or the flower pinned to his lapel.

“Should be bring him down into Falun to—”

“No,” an old voice wails, and throws itself on the corpse. “No, no, no…”

It’s Old Dean. That’s what people call him, the town drunk, but Charlie knows he’s actually very nice. There is no-one else she’d go to with her problems, and he’s never judged her. He gives so much money to the widows and the needy that no-one knows how he funds his whiskey habit as well. There’s a rumor out there that the wealth was passed down by his late father, some sort of hush money because of the now disbanded Winchester Mining Company’s horrid lack of occupational health and safety protections. Dean had had a screaming fight with his father, and refused to reconcile to his dad’s dying day.

Of course he’s here: Dean always comes up to the Stora Stöten pit on the twenty-fourth of December, and then he comes down again and drinks himself to death. Charlie’s never managed to find out why.

“Fuck you, you fucking asshole,” Dean screeches. “You promised, you bastard, I asked you not to go down that road but you did. You fucking dick, I should have known what your promises were worth. ‘No, Dean, I just need to go into the pit one more time, I want you to understand, I’m doing this for you, Dean. For our future!’ Some fucking future it is without you, you motherfucking shithead!”

He grabs the dead hands and attempts to pull his—his lover, Charlie’s sure of that—into his arms for one last time.

“Fuck you Castiel you selfish bastard,” Dean howls, and kisses the body on his decaying lips.

Dean’s mouth comes back, specked with flakes, and the reprieve the chalcanthite solution has granted the cadaver is finally over.

Castiel’s body crumbles to dust, and Dean is left only with a coat.

 

 

 

###  **... now:**

The sun keeps battering at his eyelids, and Dean decides he should get up. He wipes the grime from out his eyes and grimaces. His neck aches something awful. At least he had a pillow, he thinks mirthlessly, and inspects the tan overcoat he’s been hugging in his sleep for drool stains. There are several. When he tries to get up and clean it, though, his skeleton screams in protest. Seventy-five-year-old bones weren’t made to pass out at the table.

Worse, he’s tipped over his bottle, and it was half-full: the reeking puddle on his table bears testament to that. He should clean that up. Or wipe the liquid into a bowl. After all, there’s no point in wasting perfectly good alcohol.

Maybe later.

Dean thunks his head on the table.

And raises it again when he notices gentle hands soaking up the spill with a blue rag.

“You should take better care of yourself,” Castiel says, and Dean bursts into tears.

.:.

Castiel looks the same he did when he was alive—the same he did when Dean found him, before the body fell apart. His eyes aren’t sunken, the way Dean’s are, and his face is the face of a young man accustomed to hard work, a sailor’s face. A miner’s face, in the bloom of youth. Where Dean’s is lined by years of self-abuse and grief and age, his is still smooth to the touch.

And touch him, Dean does.

Helplessly, desperately, uncaring of the years that separate them, he raises his veined wrinkly hands to Castiel’s sleek cheekbones and pulls him in.

It’s better and worse than their first kiss. Better, because Castiel reacts this time, howling and wild, and throws himself around Dean. Better, because he now can be sure that Cas reciprocates. Better, because Dean isn’t kissing a disintegrating corpse goodbye.

It’s worse, because Dean’s hands pass through him.

While Castiel certainly has mass and weight, they meet little resistance at the place where the border of his body should be, and only come to rest somewhere inside his form, when they can’t push in further anymore, and so does Dean’s mouth. If he concentrates, he can feel his cold thumb tips on his cheeks through the warm sensation of whatever Castiel now is.

Dean keeps his eyes closed, and himself immersed in his new scalding home.

.:.

There are certain advantages to making out with a semi-incorporeal possibly malevolent ghost, Dean learns. Such as never having to stop for air. Whatever Cas is now, Dean can breathe through him. Or maybe Dean is breathing him in, he doesn’t know. He missed the class on ghost physics. In the grand scheme of things, Dean figures, it doesn’t really matter.

Cas doesn’t have to pause for breath either, or probably even breathe. Instead, he’s pouring his litany of apologies into Dean. It’s funny—Dean always fantasized about that, about Cas finally coming off his high horse and admitting he was stupid, to throw away the love Dean offered him for the lure of the abyss or a million-to-one chance of being rich enough that no-one cared if they lived openly together (Dean figures he should give him the benefit of the doubt there. Maybe the last thing Castiel told him wasn’t a lie). But now, he just doesn’t care. As long as he gets Cas back, he’ll take the pain and guilt of the last fifty years, and he’ll take Castiel as the self-righteous asshole he is, and he’ll be glad.

.:.

Dean doesn’t know how long they stay tangled up in each other, but it only stops when his stomach rumbles and Cas immediately switches gears to mother-henning. He makes Dean sit down, and tuts at the meagre supply of dried meat and bread that Dean keeps around, and then he learns the hard way that domestic bliss is still a ways off.

Cas touches the knife carelessly, where the wrought iron has been welded onto the steel.

He yelps and disappears.

.:.

Castiel returns half an hour later and pries the whiskey out of Dean’s hands, flickering angrily.

They come to a compromise, though, and this time Dean prepares the sandwiches. Cas makes him cut them into tiny soldiers and then sits next to him, cupping Dean’s head with the one hand and using the other to lovingly hand-feeding him.

Dean decides he likes the way it feels, Cas’ fingers overlapping with his lips, warm and tingly where all along he has felt so, so cold.

.:.

Dean would like to pretend his trepidation at having sex with Cas is because he’s a ghost.

In actual fact, it’s because Dean’s embarrassed. His hasn’t been able to grow fully hard in decades. He still has all of his hair—thankfully—but it’s unkempt, as is his beard, and his beer gut is soft when Castiel pokes it. He’s lost teeth, and his skin is ridged and veined as the mountain terrain, covered in wrinkles and freckles and scars. Dean can only imagine what they look like from outside his window, him whimpering on the bed, naked, as a thirty-year-old Castiel touches him reverently, still fully clothed. For some reason, that’s what gets Dean the most. They hadn’t even managed to undress him, somehow Castiel is always back in the outfit he died in when he blinks.

“Dean, let me,” Cas murmurs.

It’s by far the strangest experience he’s ever had.

There’s no race towards any kind of happy ending, not that Dean’s certain he’d make it there anymore, anyway. Cas doesn’t go for the erogenous zones. But that’s all right—Dean always suspected that Cas hadn’t done this very often before, back when they were both alive. And then he died and stayed god-knows-where. Cas obviously has no experience. He’s just curious, and touches Dean everywhere, a crisscrossing labyrinth of warmth where Castiel’s hot fingers have dipped into his skin.

Cas’ hand slips through his nipples, and Dean hisses.

Cas cups his dick, and Dean groans.

Cas moves down his body, trailing hot kisses to his ribcage, to his old sad heart, to his battered enlarged liver and small intestine. Dean can't suppress his laugh when the bristles of Castiel's beard touch his bladder—it's a small, hoarse laugh, the ghost of the kind of laughter he used to be capable of, but it's there nonetheless.

“Dean,” Castiel whispers again, and swallows him down.

In his eyes shines a brighter happiness than Dean’s ever seen.

 

.:.

 

They’ll be doing all right, all things considered.

Charlie will come by occasionally, and although Dean will have tried to keep Cas a secret at first—he won’t want to get run out of the town when everyone learns he has a male lover, one who looks fifty years younger than him. And is also a ghost. Charlie’s persistent, and perspicacious, and it will turn out she doesn’t care. She just wants somebody to take care of Dean. They will have lunch together with her and her girlfriend sometimes. It will take some time until they feel confident enough to go outside, arm in arm, but then they will realize: What are they still afraid of? Dean is old enough to die, and Castiel is already dead.

On that note: Dean will get more careful about leaving iron around.

They’ll figure out the ghost clothes problem (it will turn out that while they can’t be taken off completely without triggering the yo-yo effect, it’s a-okay to just ruck the shirt up to Cas’ armpits and the pants down to his ankles. Ghost physics is strange sometimes).

Castiel will still forget things, both things from his life before (Dean will whisper the stories that he was told fifty years ago into his ear, and reenact the scenes he was there for. And when he can’t remember either, he will make things up. Only nice things, though, he promises.) and from ten hours ago (Dean will make him write the important things down, and hold his hand when Castiel’s trembles through the pencil).

Dean will still have alienated all of his former friends in his grief, and he’ll still be getting older. Though he will eat better now, and Cas will make him cut down on drinking.

Sometimes Cas will disappear for a day and Dean will have to go to the mine again and tell the new arrivals horror stories to scare them away.

But, they’ll be happy.

 

(And when Dean’s time finally comes, Cas will follow him home.)

**Author's Note:**

> Without the lovely BurningTea and ExpatGirl who thought of this thing, this fic wouldn't have existed.
> 
> It’s a reworking of ETA Hoffmann’s The Mines of Falun, which is great fun and contains zero amounts of geriatric ghost sex. This isn't quite the fic I set out to write, but as it turns out, I couldn't get the creepiness to work and my second version was too miserable for me to enjoy. Hence, ghost sex, which probably messes up all of ETA's symbolism that I mostly ignored anyway. Cas’ last name is taken from the original protagonist and the deeply unsubtle title’s from a Pogues song.
> 
> Beautiful winter holidays and/or merry christmas to you!


End file.
